


Frozen Memories

by merryghoul



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Animal Death, Attempted Murder, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily has never had any use for pictures.  Well, she thinks she doesn't have any use for them, since her memories are still faint.</p><p>A short character sketch of Emily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [incapricious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/incapricious/gifts).



> I know this is more Emily-focused, incapricious, but there is a little mention of Nolan in this. Hope you like it!

Emily has never had any use for pictures.  Well, she thinks she doesn't have any use for them, since her memories are still faint.

Videos are more useful to her these days.  Videos help her keep an eye on her enemies and confirm their suspicions with them.  She can protect Charlotte from afar with them.  There are some downfalls with videos—they can be erased, destroyed or get into the hands of the wrong people.  If you can catch someone in motion with a video, you can use that video against them.  Pictures, on the other hand, can be staged.  They can capture memories and falsehoods.  They can trigger real memories or false ones.  Videos can be trusted.  Pictures, on the other hand?  They don't have that level of trust.

Emily thinks her memories of her life before she was torn away from her family were repressed along with the bad ones after she was institutionalized.  She prefers not to remember them.  They'll slow her down, clutter her mind.  She'll only look at photos, especially her father's photos, and recall her memories when she needs them. 

And even then, she's not sure if they're her memories.

 

It took a while for Emily to open the Infinity Box.

Emily had accepted her fate.  Her mother was dead.  Her father, also dead, was a terrorist.  Sure, Emily remembered her father as kind and loving before she was institutionalized.  But the adults she knew were trustworthy.  The press was trustworthy.  Emily was the product of horrible people.  The best thing they had left her was a lot of money.  Emily wanted to wrap herself in it until it was all gone. 

Nolan had persuaded her time and time again to open the box, but she refused.

When Emily finally opened the box, her memories came back.

The photos helped, but her father's journals convinced her.  There was a pain in his writing she could sense.  The people he talked about were coded in _hes_ and _shes_ and _theys,_ followed by entries where her father listed his enemies by name.  The way her father randomly CAPITALIZED his enemies' TRAITS in his shorter, period-free entries, along with the longer he/she/they entries, helped her plan her list of people to get revenge on.

There was one thing: Emily, still known as Amanda at that time, couldn't exact revenge as Amanda.  She needed a change of name. 

She had a friend, Emily Thorne, from juvie.  Maybe she would help.

 

The only person who knew who Emily really was wasn't a person at all.  It was her dog, Sammy.  Jack had held on to him.  Jack was still in love with her.  She wanted to be in love with him, but she couldn't love him, not as the new Emily Thorne.

It took willpower for Emily to ensure Sammy wouldn't expose her as Amanda. 

Sammy's death was expected.  By the time she came back from the Hamptons, Sammy was old—a remarkable 19 years old.  Sammy's death was painful to her.  But Emily couldn't connect to Sammy, not until her enemies were gone.  And they weren't gone, not yet.

Emily accepted Sammy's death.  It used to hurt, seeing Amanda and Sammy with her father before her family was torn apart from the photos in the Infinity Box. 

But time wasted on grieving means a loss of control on actions as well as the act of observing them.  Emily believed grief is a life sentence without clemency.  She had done some foolish things in the moments after Sammy's death.  With her mother, father and her childhood pet now gone, she had no excuses to grieve and no more moments or chances to make costly mistakes.     

Emily moved on from grieving and returned to her revenge: who to set up, whom to target, to get the truth to be revealed.

 

Emily is still not sure why she blocked out her mother trying to kill her.  When she recalls the memory now, she senses herself being there.  She's swimming in the ocean when her mother was holding her down.  For a few seconds, everything feels like a vivid dream.  Her vision's getting darker.  She feels the rush of salt water going up her nose.  She can even taste the salt water.  Then she remembers breathing again.

 "It's okay, Amanda," he said after the attempted homicide.  "It was only a dream."

From that moment on Emily believed the attempted homicide was a dream. 

 _He lied to protect me,_ Emily rationalizes.  _If he lived, he would've told me the truth about the drowning and my mother._

The lie helped Emily accept the falsehood of her mother dying in a crash in 1989.

Emily accepted her father lying to her.  She _can't_ accept anyone else doing the same thing.

 

Well after the death of Sammy, the return of her mother, the realization that everyone, especially Nolan and Amanda (pretending to be her) can't all be treated as pawns (well, at least not in front of them), Emily looks at her Infinity Box and goes through the pictures. 

She doesn't feel rage when she sees the Grayson Global picture from 1992.  She doesn't cry or get upset when she sees her father, Jack or Sammy in the photos.  All of those things are in the past.  She is in the present.  If her enemies are gone, she will be emotional, happy—but in the future. 

The photos are there to motivate her.  They're not proof of innocence or guilt.  They're all useless in a court of law.  The photos are what they are: frozen memories. 

Once she is done, she closes the box and puts it away.  The next day awaits.  Emily is always one camera, one person, one secret away from clearing her father's name. 

When that day comes, she'll put away everything.  She'll free all the pawns, forget about the videos and everything in the Infinity Box.

Until that day comes, she'll have to stay hidden, like the secrets that have yet to be revealed.


End file.
